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The Failure of the Free Market? A Analysis of the Viability of State Capitalism as an Economic Growth Model.
No full textIn this thesis, I analyze State Capitalism to determine if it is a viable alternative to the free market as an economic growth model, using China as a case study. I analyze China’s development from the death of Mao Zedong to the present, paying particular attention to how China was able to implement reforms and transition from the traditional model to the various more liberal models during the later stages of its growth. I focus on the balance between consumption and investment, factor productivity, fiscal decentralization, financial market reforms, and political reforms. In the case study, I argue that while China has successfully reformed in some areas, positioning it to maintain its economic growth, it has failed to address all of its economic issues, creating problems that will surely become a hindrance to development in the future. I find that while State Capitalism can serve as a viable growth model during the early stages of a country’s development, the success of the model long-term depends on a country’s ability to institute various reforms that are needed throughout economic growth. Due to the varying nature of the issues that arise during development, State Capitalism becomes more nuanced during the later stages of development, with each country creating specific models that cater to their individual economic issues
Elucidating the multiple functions of POLDIP2 in Drosophila melanogaster.
No full textWe are interested in the potential role POLDIP2 might play regarding polymerase recruitment and switching during DNA repair in Drosophila melanogaster. Complete deletion of the gene was induced via the CRISPR Cas-9 editing system and a DsRed marker was inserted into the POLDIP2 locus via homology-directed repair. Intriguingly, flies homozygous for the deletion incur lethality at the second-instar larval stage. We are currently utilizing several approaches to determine the genetic basis for this lethality. Crosses between knockout mutants and a P-element stock suggest that POLDIP2 might be essential for viability. However, rescue of the homozygotes is impeded by the presence of a second site lethal mutations. Mutagen sensitivity assays will be conducted with these mutants to better characterize the interplay between POLDIP2 and the DNA repair and replication machineries
A study of the mechanisms of GAA repeat expansion in S. cerevisiae.
No full textSenior honors thesis completed in the Mirkin Lab on the topic of Friedreich's ataxia and GAA repeat expansion
Cross limb communication during Xenopus hind-limb regenerative response: non-local bioelectric injury signals.
No full textThis thesis investigates the cross-body signaling phenomenon that occurs in response to amputation in regenerating Xenopus froglets. In response to amputation, the contralateral, unharmed limb becomes depolarized. This depolarization event is an extremely fast, amputation specific, and mirrored response to what occurs in the affected limb, and only occurs in regenerating froglets. This thesis seeks to characterize bioelectric injury mirroring (BIM), and provide insight into its possible mechanisms and function in limb regeneration
Helicase Requirements for Prevention of Fragility at the Flex1 AT Repeat.
No full textCommon fragile sites are regions of the genome that are present in all individuals, and prone to breakage under replicative stress. FRA16D, one of the most highly expressed common fragile sites, is located in the WWOX gene. The WWOX protein is a putative tumor suppressor which has been linked to cancer proliferation. Flex1, an AT-rich sequence within the FRA16D site, contributes to much of FRA16D’s fragility (Zhang and Freudenreich, 2007). It is possible that a secondary structure may form in Flex1, causing fragility. These secondary structures may need to be unwound, or they may stall replication and cause a reversed fork; either scenario can prevent proper replication progression and result in DNA breakage. In this project, genetic assays in Saccharomyces cerevisiae were used to indirectly measure fragility of Flex1 in the absence of various helicases associated with replication and DNA damage and repair. The rate of fragility in the presence and absence of helicases Rrm3, Srs2, Sgs1, and Mph1 was evaluated. The absence of Rrm3 seems to cause a decrease in fragility at Flex1. The presence of Sgs1 and Mph1 have a protective effect at Flex1, and in their absence there is an increase in fragility. Srs2 does not seem to have an effect fragility at Flex1. Based on these results, it is possible to predict that some of these helicases may prevent breakage at Flex1 through the formation of regressed forks (especially Mph1). Fork regression could lead to eventual fork restart or mitotic DNA synthesis across the AT repeat at Flex1, and be a way to avoid DNA fragility
Shouldn't it be "Midhusband?": The Dynamics of Masculinity and Structural Femininity in American Midwifery.
No full textMidwifery today has been recontextualized as subversive within the American medical system. This is in large part due to the gendered, clinical takeover of birth care by obstetricians during the 18th and 19th centuries. Reentering the medical system in the early 1900s, midwifery subverted the obstetric conception birth as pathological, and established a women-centered approach to birth care. In the face of this history, this study asks what happens in the clinical and professional spaces of midwifery when masculine identified folk become midwives. A group of six mothers, and nine midwives were interviewed for this study. The mothers in experienced their pregnancies as inseparable from their identities as cis-women; this translated into their expectations of midwifery care, and their relationships to masculine clinical providers. The mothers experienced a relationship arc with their masculine midwives characterized by a positive shift in their perspective on the masculinity of said providers. Midwifery was found to be a hyperfeminized profession that, in some ways, pushed back against the presence of masculinity unlike other feminine professions. The trans-masculine and genderqueer-masculine-of-center midwives experienced transphobia characterized by invisibility and isolation within the midwifery community, and blatant exclusion from and by their cis-feminine counterparts. Unlike the cis-masculine midwives, the queer midwives in this study voiced a desire to create space for, and to support queer and trans patients. These results help to define the concept of a “hyperfeminized profession” wherein agents and recipients of midwifery care adhere to structural femininity in recognition of the gendered power dynamic in clinical pregnancy and birth care created by the history of the profession. The study showed that the dynamic of hyperfemininity in midwifery required masculine identified agents to conform and uphold the standard of femininity defined by the profession
Gendered Neutral: Identity Development of Francophone Individuals with Non-binary Identities.
No full textIn 2012, a Radiolab podcast episode called “Colors” interviewed Guy Deutscher, a man who has studied and researched how differences between languages shape the way people perceive the world. Deutscher discusses a casual experiment he performed on his young daughter. As she grew up, he never told her what color the sky was. When she was a few years old, he asked her to look up at the sky and tell him the color. She was unable to, and said that she only saw it as white. The older she grew, the more language she learned, and the more experience she had looking at the sky, the more she was able to see the sky as blue. This experiment shows a question that scientists and researchers since Isaac Newton have been trying to uncover: can people see color if they do not have a name for it? This question brings to light the question of the power of language in how humans understand the world. How much does language influence how a person understands their own life experiences? Can people have feelings for which they do not have names?Can people have a gender for which they do not have a name?The aforementioned question is the foundation for this study, which looks at the power and limitation of language on gender identity development. Specifically, this study explores how people with non-binary gender identities who speak French understand and develop their gender given the binary gendered constraints of the French language. When is language important and when is language not important in developing a gender identity? These questions are explored using literature on gender from a social constructionist lense, sociolinguistics, and identity development and using interviews with non-binary Francophone people
Elephant Tracks II: Practical, Extensible Memory Tracing.
No full textThis thesis presents a new tool for memory tracing, Elephant Tracks II. Elephant Tracks II (or ET2) is a portable, modular and extensible memory tracing tool designed for practical memory tracing of garbage-collected programs, producing precise traces of the program’s heap operations, including allocation, pointer mutation, procedure entry & exit, and object deaths, using the Merlin algorithm (Hertz et al., 2006) to compute death times. Unlike all previous tools, however, ET2 is capable to support multiple programming languages by decoupling the tracing phase and the death time computation phase. We describe the high-level design and low-level implementation strategies employed to support this extensibility and portability. In this thesis, we also present new algorithms and implementation techniques developed as part of the Elephant Tracks II project, as well as an overview of the applications of memory tracing
An Analysis of the Video Game as a Storytelling Medium and the Creation of Awakening: A Science Fiction Story-Game.
No full textAn analysis of storytelling in video games and a literature review on the scholarship around interactive stories. There is also a creative part of the project, in which I wrote a detailed outline for the story and gameplay of a game, which I called "Awakening"
Nomenclature for endogenous retrovirus (ERV) loci.
No full textAbstract: Retroviral integration into germline DNA can result in the formation of a vertically inherited proviral sequence called an endogenous retrovirus (ERV). Over the course of their evolution, vertebrate genomes have accumulated many thousands of ERV loci. These sequences provide useful retrospective information about ancient retroviruses, and have also played an important role in shaping the evolution of vertebrate genomes. There is an immediate need for a unified system of nomenclature for ERV loci, not only to assist genome annotation, but also to facilitate research on ERVs and their impact on genome biology and evolution. In this review, we examine how ERV nomenclatures have developed, and consider the possibilities for the implementation of a systematic approach for naming ERV loci. We propose that such a nomenclature should not only provide unique identifiers for individual loci, but also denote orthologous relationships between ERVs in different species. In addition, we propose that—where possible—mnemonic links to previous, well-established names for ERV loci and groups should be retained. We show how this approach can be applied and integrated into existing taxonomic and nomenclature schemes for retroviruses, ERVs and transposable elements.Keywords: Retrovirus, Nomenclature, Endogenous, Taxonomy, Classification.Springer Open